[biker1]

The amenities fee increases are tied to the CPI. Your amenities fee has gone up 6% in 4 years or about 1.5% per year. If you look at the recent history of the CPI you will see that 1.5% per year is about right as an average over the last 4 years.

Originally Posted by mixsonci

I bought my house in 2013 and my amentities fee was $143, today I noticed it has gone up to $152, seems to me to be a lot for 4 years

[Goldwingnut]

The below link will take you to the agenda item for the PWAC that approved the amenity budget for this year. Click on the Budget Packet link at the bottom and a .pdf document will open with the entire budget. On the 4th page starts a very brief line item by line item breakdown of where the money comes from and what the expenditures are.

PWAC spent many hours over multiple meetings going over this budget throughout the year and beat to death each line item understanding it. These meetings were and always are open to the public. Public interest in the budget and budget process was basically zero with only district supervisors (primary and alternate PWAC members) attending. The lack of public involvement was both surprising and disappointing considering the intense interest last year over the purchase of the amenity contracts and facilities by SLCDD from the developer.

What is not shown in the budget is a breakdown of what each homeowner pays monthly as there are literally dozens of different rates due to the timing of the building of the many subdivisions within The Villages and the impact of the CPI adjustments each year. All are within a couple of dollars of each other, but the rate changed/changes slightly as each subdivision is created and the fee for it is established and when homes are sold. In all it is a very complicated process and to all of our benefit the rate adjustments are very tightly controlled by the contracts we signed at purchase that limits how much the rates go up. There is also currently a cap on the maximum amenity fee and to my knowledge no one is at the cap value.

Before complaining about any specific item in the budget I would recommended you attend the monthly PWAC meeting, or AAC meeting if you live north of 466, or contact the finance department and get the FACTS. A vast number of the opinions and pseudo-facts expressed on this and other on-line sites are simply wrong and uninformed. One of the best parts of living in Florida is the Sunshine Laws that make all of this information available to the public and all meetings of public officials open to the public. The facts are available for all to see.

FY17-18 SLAD Fund Budget Review

[dewilson58]

Originally Posted by Goldwingnut

FY17-18 SLAD Fund Budget Review

Great Link.............Thanks.

[champion6]

Bogie Shooter & Goldwingnut: Thanks for the links!

[collie1228]

Originally Posted by Dr Winston O Boogie jr

What exactly do they pay for? I can think of pools, rec centers, tennis courts and executive golf courses. Does anything else come out of our amenity fees?

Janet Tutt occasionally gives a presentation on where our money goes in The Villages. I haven't attended but heard from others that it is highly informative and that Ms. Tutt is very impressive. You might check on that.

[Trish Crocker]

all of the beautiful landscaping, cleaning of the streets, patrols, gate keepers, maintaining cart paths, I can think of a lot of things that are taken care of every day.

[Goldwingnut]

Originally Posted by Trish Crocker

all of the beautiful landscaping, cleaning of the streets, patrols, gate keepers, maintaining cart paths, I can think of a lot of things that are taken care of every day.

Some of these come from the monthly Amenity fees and some come from the annual maintenance fee, some from both.

An easy example is landscaping:
The cost to maintain the landscaping around a recreation center come from the amenity fees.
The cost to maintain the landscaping for the island in the middle of a cul-de-sac on a residential street comes from the applicable CDD's maintenance budget.
There are 18 or 19 different landscaping budgets to cover all the areas of The Villages, while it may seem cumbersome it does allow for significant economies of scale and better pricing that works in all of our favor, even with any additional overhead which might be incurred.

Both the amenity fees and the maintenance budget cover a lot of thing. In other developments these items would be covered by city/county taxes, HOA fees, and amenity fees.